Opportunity on Mars? roving for theory in the re(a)d dust rather than beyond

Abstract

What inspires new entrepreneurial theory? And, what should it be – new entrepreneurial phenomena, new and different scholarly voices, or something else? There is recent evidence that it is a ‘something else’ – something that may be interpreted as unusual-yet-too-familiar – where established voices are stretching fictional stories and language games to get to their preferred models and definitions. While diversity and extension of ideas is more than welcome in our field, perhaps what is even more important is that that emerges from a more diverse and stretched set of authors, pedigrees and schools of thought. So, what is there to do? First, we can show that this current approach is not working through example. Second, we can suggest how to be better inspired. Third, we can consider the commonalities in these examples to comment on what that means for progress in the field as it is, and then to suggest ways for improvement at the field level. We take these three steps with an eye to the scientific mindset and a set of expectations about what makes good entrepreneurship theory